Princess Grace of Monaco died in a 1954 car crash

Johnny Miller

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, September 6, 2007

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Grace Kelly with Oscar she won in 1954 for "The Country Girl" Ran on: 02-25-2005
Grace Kelly, winning best actress for &quo;The Country Girl&quo; in 1954, seemed older than her 27 years to a preteen Movie Insider. less

Grace Kelly with Oscar she won in 1954 for "The Country Girl" Ran on: 02-25-2005
Grace Kelly, winning best actress for &quo;The Country Girl&quo; in 1954, seemed older than her 27 years to a preteen Movie ... more

Photo: AP

Princess Grace of Monaco died in a 1954 car crash

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Here's a look at our past. Items have been culled from The Chronicle's archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.

Sept. 9: Mayor Dianne Feinstein had an audience with Pope John Paul II in Rome. She presented to the pontiff a cross made from 15 melted-down pistols - including her own - that were turned in under San Francisco's new gun ban. "I think the pope understood the cross was made of guns," Feinstein said. "I explained that San Francisco was the first large city in America to ban handguns. He seemed pleased."

Sept. 11: The Rev. Ian Paisley, the outspoken Protestant leader in Northern Ireland, spoke under tight security at the funeral service of the Rev. Guy Archer Weniger in a Castro Valley church. Paisley eulogized Weniger as "a courageous warrior at the helm of the fight against godless communism and Roman Catholicism." Paisley was allowed into the country for the sole purpose of attending the funeral. The United States had refused to allow him into the country twice in the past year for speaking tours that the State Department felt "might not be in the best political interests of the United States in achieving a peaceful solution to the problems in Northern Ireland."

Sept. 15: Princess Grace of Monaco, the Oscar-winning American actress who gave up Hollywood stardom for a dashing prince and his tiny realm, died yesterday of injuries suffered in a car crash. The former Grace Kelly was trapped in her car when it plunged 120 feet off a mountain road and burst into flames. She was driving with her youngest child, 17-year-old Princess Stephanie, who remains hospitalized.

Sept. 10: Ralph Neves, the fiery little South San Francisco "Portuguese Pepperpot," became the fifth American jockey to ride 3,000 winners, a considerable achievement for a dead man. Neves, who scored his historic triumph in the fifth race at Tanforan, has been cheating the undertaker since 1936, when he was pronounced dead at the Bay Meadows track hospital after a serious spill. The 108-pound Neves was left unattended on a gurney in a side room of the track hospital and declared dead by the track doctor, when he suddenly sprang to life. Momentarily unaware of his whereabouts, but conscious of his riding obligations, Neves lit for the nearest door, fled the hospital and sprinted to the jockey room. He was hastened back to the hospital but returned to the track two days later to ride as daringly as before.

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Sept. 11: Enough distilled spirits are sold in San Francisco to average 4.57 gallons a year for every person in the city. The state average is 1.7 gallons. This not only keeps San Francisco in top place in the amount of alcohol purchased, but also gives every sixth adult a drinking problem. The city health director released a few sobering figures: San Francisco leads the nation in consumption of alcohol and has 23,751 alcoholics.

Sept. 14: A rare display of the northern lights - aurora borealis - flashed across the northeastern quadrant of California's sky. It appeared in the Bay Area, coming first as a deep maroon wave of light at 11:30 p.m. yesterday and reaching a brilliant peak of red and white two hours later. The phenomenon was not seen in San Francisco because of the city's usual bank of fog but was clearly visible in the East Bay and Marin.

Sept. 10: New songs can never take the place of old favorites, said radio crooner Bing Crosby, who arrived in San Francisco yesterday. "Wherever I go," Crosby said, "after a few new songs the audience invariably asks for the old ones." Crosby has not changed from when he played here with Paul Whiteman and Paul Ash and dreamed one day to be earning a staggering salary of $200 a month. That was before the advent of radio.

Sept. 11: From San Joaquin valley comes a heady scent and a purplish trail on the highway. It's the wine grape coming to town, the explanation for those high-piled trucks that rumble through the streets in the early-morning hours, filling the air with an aroma like the nectar of old Olympus. The first cargo for the "home manufacture of nonintoxicating fruit juices," as defined under Prohibition regulations, are arriving. And so some of our most picturesque citizens are now walking around in grape-filled tubs after the day's work is done.

Sept. 12: A shooting that nearly resulted in murder occurred at Jones and Chestnut streets. The seven strapping Rocca brothers, sons of Luigi Rocca, all crab fishermen and Sicilians, attacked James Sanchimini, also a fisherman, who has been married but 15 days to Maria, the favorite daughter of the Roccas. The brothers fired a fusillade of shots at Sanchimini, who returned fire. Fortunately, all were more familiar with handling their nets than with revolvers, and the only object hit was the blinder of Sanchimini's horse, which was punctured without injuring the horse. A riot call was sent and eight patrolmen responded. When the police reached the scene, Sanchimini was holding the fort alone, the brothers having scattered. As no one had been wounded and the seven brothers had disappeared, the police made no arrest, but contented themselves with taking Sanchimini to police headquarters, where he refused to swear out complaints against his brothers-in-law. And, as several witnesses had testified that Sanchimini had made a brave fight and did not shoot until many shots had been fired by his enemies, no charge was entered against him. {sbox}